BERLIN: Desperate travelers choked European border crossings Wednesday after countries across the Continent began shutting the doors against the coronavirus, which has now infected more than 200,000 people worldwide and killed over 8,000.
In the US, President Donald Trump pressed Congress to swiftly pass a potentially $1 trillion rescue package to prop up the economy and speed relief checks to Americans in a matter of weeks, as stocks tumbled again on Wall Street.
The border closings extended to North America, as the US and Canada agreed to close their shared boundary to nonessential travel. And the Trump administration was said to be considering a plan to turn back all people who cross into the United States illegally from Mexico.
Some bright spots emerged: Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus was first detected in late December and which has been under lockdown for weeks, reported just one new case for a second straight day Wednesday.
But in a grim illustration of the epidemic’s shifting center of gravity, the death toll in Italy moved closer to overtaking China’s. Italy had more than 2,500 dead and was averaging about 350 a day; China’s toll was just over 3,200.
Meanwhile, the United Nations’ International Labor Organization estimated that the crisis could cause nearly 25 million job losses and drain up to $3.4 trillion in income by year’s end, but that a coordinated global response in the form of fiscal stimulus and other measures could help reduce the toll.
In releasing the new global infection figures, Johns Hopkins University said more than 82,000 people have recovered from the virus, which causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough in most cases, though severe illness is more likely in the elderly and those with existing health problems.
Still, scientists have no doubt the true number of people infected is higher than the 200,000 reported by health authorities because of the possibility that many mild cases have gone unrecognized or unreported, and because of the lag in large-scale testing in the US, where the effort has been marked by bumbling and bureaucratic delay.
The US reported more than 6,500 cases and at least 107 deaths, half of them in Washington state, where dozens of residents from a suburban Seattle nursing home have died.
Across the Continent, European leaders closed borders to nonessential traffic, while leaving many frontiers open to cross-border workers and trucks carrying critical goods like food and medicine. That led to monumental traffic jams.
To alleviate some of the pressure from Eastern Europeans stuck in Austria and trying to return home, Hungary opened its borders in phases. Bulgarian citizens were first allowed to cross in carefully controlled convoys, then Romanians had a turn. Serbians were also allowed to pass through.
But at one point early on the Austrian side, trucks were backed up for 28 kilometers (17 miles) and cars for 14 kilometers (nearly 9 miles).
“The traffic jam is slowly starting to dissolve,” said Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer. “We’re trying to manage the traffic situation as best as possible.”
Thousands of trucks were backed up in Lithuania on roads into Poland. Traffic was similarly jammed along Germany’s border with Poland.
The European Union said that it was trying to help about 80,000 citizens stuck outside Europe get home, but that it faced huge challenges, including finding flights.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic expressed outrage as his citizens returned, claiming that 40,000 coming from jobs abroad had largely ignored orders to go into isolation at home, putting others in the country at risk.
Italy has been the second-hardest hit country with more than 31,000 cases, behind more than 81,000 in China. But Lothar Wieler, head of the Germany’s disease control institute, warned that unless social contacts are reduced, his country could have 10 million infected people in two to three months.
In Southeast Asia, the causeway between Malaysia and the financial hub of Singapore was eerily quiet after Malaysia shut its borders, while the Philippines backed down on an order giving foreigners 72 hours to leave from a large part of its main island.
Taiwan said that it, too, would ban foreigners from entry and citizens would have to quarantine at home for 14 days.
Even tourists on Ecuador’s Galapagos islands — 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off the South American mainland — have been affected. Canadian Jessy Lamontaine and her family were stuck there when flights were suspended.
“I was in tears this morning,” Lamontaine said. “I couldn’t get any answers from the airline. I had no money and didn’t know whether I was going to keep my job.”
In the US, the coronavirus is present in all 50 states after West Virginia reported an infection. In far-flung Hawaii, the governor encouraged travelers to postpone their island vacations, while Nevada ordered its casinos closed.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that residents should be prepared for the possibility of a shelter-in-place order within days — a near-lockdown like the one covering almost 7 million people in the San Francisco Bay area. In the most sweeping measure of its kind in the US, they are allowed to leave their homes only for food, medicine or exercise.
World virus infections pass 200,000, Europe’s borders jammed
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World virus infections pass 200,000, Europe’s borders jammed
- The border closings extended to North America
- Johns Hopkins University said more than 82,000 people have recovered from the virus
India readies for US extradition of Pakistan-born suspect in Mumbai attacks
- Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media says
- India accuses Rana of being member of Pakistan-based LeT group designated by the UN as a ‘terrorist’ organization
NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.
India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization, and of aiding planning the attacks. Pakistan has always denied official complicity.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blames the LeT group — as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan — for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his long-term friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslims around the globe.
But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley — and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done.”
Devika Rotawan, a survivor of the Mumbai attacks, said she believed the extradition of Rana would be a “big win for India.”
“I will never be able to forget the attack,” she told broadcaster NDTV on Wednesday.
Counterterrorism experts however suggest Rana’s involvement was peripheral compared to Headley, a US citizen, who India also wants extradited.
“They gave us a small fish but kept David Headley, so the essential outcome is going to be symbolic,” said Ajay Sahni, head of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Rana knew Headley, 64, from their days together at boarding school in Pakistan.
Headley, who testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial, said he had used his friend’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India, by opening a branch in Mumbai.
Rana has said he visited Mumbai ahead of the attacks — and stayed at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel that would become the epicenter of the bloody siege — but denied involvement in the conspiracy.
Sahni said that more than 16 years after the attacks, Rana’s extradition is of “historical importance” rather than a source of any “live intelligence.”
But he added that handing him over has “a chilling effect” on others abroad who India seeks to put on trial.
India readies for US extradition of Mumbai attacks suspect
- Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited ‘shortly’ to face trial
- India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group
NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.
India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization, and of aiding planning the attacks.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blames the LeT group – as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan – for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 Islamist gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his longterm friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslims around the globe.
But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley – and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done.”
Devika Rotawan, a survivor of the Mumbai attacks, said she believed the extradition of Rana would be a “big win for India.”
“I will never be able to forget the attack,” she told broadcaster NDTV on Wednesday.
Counterterrorism experts however suggest Rana’s involvement was peripheral compared to Headley, a US citizen, who India also wants extradited.
“They gave us a small fish but kept David Headley, so the essential outcome is going to be symbolic,” said Ajay Sahni, head of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Rana knew Headley, 64, from their days together at boarding school in Pakistan.
Headley, who testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial, said he had used his friend’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India, by opening a branch in Mumbai.
Rana has said he visited Mumbai ahead of the attacks – and stayed at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel that would become the epicenter of the bloody siege – but denied involvement in the conspiracy.
Sahni said that more than 16 years after the attacks, Rana’s extradition is of “historical importance” rather than a source of any “live intelligence.”
But he added that handing him over has “a chilling effect” on others abroad who India seeks to put on trial.
Austrian woman on trial after repatriation from Syrian detention camp
- Evelyn T., who is accused of having been a member of a terrorist group from 2015 to 2017, could face up to 10 years in prison
- She left Austria for Syria’s then Daesh controlled area in 2016 to join her husband
VIENNA: An Austrian woman who was brought back alongside her son from a Syrian detention camp went on trial in Vienna on Wednesday, in the first such case in the country.
Since the Daesh group was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019, the return of family members of fighters that were either captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.
Evelyn T., 26, has been in detention since she was repatriated to Austria last month, while her son, seven, was placed in social services’ custody.
On Wednesday, she was expected to plead guilty in court to the charges of being part of a terrorist group and a criminal organization, according to her lawyer Anna Mair.
“She takes responsibility for what she has done... and she wants to lead a normal life in the future,” Mair said ahead of the trial’s opening.
Evelyn T., who is accused of having been a member of a terrorist group from 2015 to 2017, could face up to 10 years in prison.
She left Austria for Syria’s then Daesh controlled area in 2016 to join her husband, “supporting him psychologically and taking care of the household,” according to the charges.
Their son was born in 2017. The couple surrendered later that year, with Evelyn T. and her son ending up in a Kurdish-run detention camp for suspected militants.
The two were repatriated together with another woman, Maria G., and her two sons.
Maria, now 28, left Austria in 2017 to join Daesh in Syria. She remains free since her return, while an investigation is ongoing.
Last year, a Vienna court ordered that she and her sons be repatriated, stressing that it was “in the children’s greater interest.”
Austria’s foreign ministry had previously rejected her request to be repatriated, saying that only the children would be accepted.
The EU member previously repatriated several children.
Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands are among other countries that have repatriated relatives of militant fighters.
Many of the women returned have been charged with terrorism crimes and imprisoned.
EU countries set to approve first retaliation against US tariffs
- The approval will come on the day that Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on the EU and dozens of countries took effect
- The European Commission proposed on Monday extra duties mostly of 25 percent on a range of US imports
BRUSSELS: European Union countries are expected to approve on Wednesday the bloc’s first countermeasures against US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, joining China and Canada in retaliating and escalating a conflict that could become a global trade war.
The approval will come on the day that Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on the EU and dozens of countries took effect, including massive 104 percent duties on China, extending his tariff onslaught and spurring more widespread selling across financial markets.
The 27-nation bloc faces 25 percent import tariffs on steel and aluminum and cars as well as the new broader tariffs of 20 percent for almost all other goods under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.
The European Commission, which coordinates EU trade policy, proposed on Monday extra duties mostly of 25 percent on a range of US imports in response specifically to the US metals tariffs. It is still assessing how to respond to the car and broader levies.
The imports include motorcycles, poultry, fruit, wood, clothing and dental floss, according to a document seen by Reuters. They totaled about €21 billion ($23 billion) last year, meaning the EU’s retaliation will be against goods worth less than the €26 billion of EU metals exports hit by US tariffs.
They are to enter force in stages – on April 15, May 16 and December 1.
A committee of trade experts from the EU’s 27 countries will vote on Wednesday afternoon on the Commission’s proposal, which will only be blocked if a “qualified majority” of 15 EU members representing 65 percent of the EU population vote against.
That is an unlikely event given the Commission has already canvassed EU members and refined an initial list from mid-March, removing US dairy and alcoholic drinks.
Major wine exporters France and Italy had expressed concern after Trump threatened to hit EU wine and spirits with a 200 percent tariff if the EU went ahead with its planned 50 percent duty on bourbon.
Trump has already responded to Beijing’s counter-tariffs announced last week, nearly doubling duties on Chinese imports. China has vowed to “fight to the end.”
Indonesia president says ready to temporarily shelter Gazans
- “We are ready to receive wounded victims,” Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said
- Wounded Palestinians and “traumatized, orphaned children” would be prioritized, he said.
JAKARTA: Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday said he was prepared to grant temporary shelter to Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza between the Israeli military and the territory’s rulers Hamas.
Nearly 400,000 Gaza residents have been displaced in the weeks since Israel resumed military operations in the territory last month, according to the United Nations.
“We are ready to receive wounded victims,” Prabowo said before leaving for a Middle East visit to the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan.
“We are ready to send planes to transport them. We estimate the numbers may be 1,000 for the first wave.”
Wounded Palestinians and “traumatized, orphaned children” would be prioritized, he said.
He said he had instructed his foreign minister to talk with Palestinian officials and “parties in the region” on how to evacuate wounded or orphaned Gazans.
The victims would only be in Indonesia until they recovered and it was safe for their return.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has consistently called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to Turkish media, Prabowo will be afforded the rare opportunity to address the Turkish parliament.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of the main backers of the Palestinian cause and visited Indonesia in February, where the pair pledged closer ties.
